HOW PSYCHOANALYSIS IS TAKING ROOT IN SOUTH AFRICA
joan-professor-joan-raphael-leff-1Joan Raphael-Leff, PhD, psychoanalyst (Fellow, British Psychoanalytical Society) and social psychologist, leads the Anna Freud Centre academic faculty for psychoanalytic research
Abstract
The history of psychoanalysis in South Africa is a story of tenaciousness. It began after Wulf Sachs emigrated there in 1922 with his family. Born in Lithuania in1893, he had trained at the Psycho-Neurological Institute in St. Petersburg (under Pavlova and Bechterev), at the University of Cologne, and at London University, where he took a degree in medicine. He began as a General Practitioner in Johannesburg but his interest in psychology was intensified by the experience of working with black schizophrenic patients at the Pretoria Mental Hospital from 1928. In 1929-30 Sachs underwent a six month analysis in Berlin (possibly with Brill) and he came into contact with Freud, whose diaries indicate that Freud, Anna Freud and Ernest Jones were all well disposed towards him, and ‘intrigued’ by the idea of a South African Study Group under his leadership. (Dubow, 1993; see also Molnar, 1992, pp. 173, 215-216, 294). Sadie (Mervis) Gillespie added that at this time Sachs spent some time in New York getting supervision from Helene Deutsch and Grete Bibring.
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Referências
Dubow, S (1993) Wulf Sachs’s Black Hamlet: A Case of ‘Psychic Vivisection’? African Affairs, 92:519-556
Sachs, W. (1934) Psycho-Analysis: Its Meaning and Practical Applications, London: Cassell
Gillespie, S. (1992) Historical notes on the first South African psychoanalytic society, Psycho-analytic Psychotherapy in South Africa, 1:1-6
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Molnar, M. (Ed) (1992) The Diary of Sigmund Freud 1929-39: A record of the final decade, London: Hogarth Press, 1992.
Raphael-Leff, J. (2015) Trauma, reconciliation, embodiment: An account of the 9th and 10th SAPI conferences, Psycho-analytic Psychotherapy in South Africa, 24:118-125
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Aceito em:
08/12/2021
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